Programa Literatura en Inglés II

Licenciatura en Lengua y Literaturas Modernas

Literatura en inglés II:

Renaissance Literature

Dra. Gabriela Villanueva Noriega

General Description

The course aims to provide a general, critical overview of the literature produced in England throughout the sixteenth century. The course will be organized thematically and will cover the main traditions that conform the Elizabethan world picture: Humanism, Neoplatonism, the Printing Revolution, the Reformation, the visions of New World, classical lyric modes, authorship, drama, etc. The course will cover the main changes and transformations that took place during the period and will aim to understand works of literature through this lens.

Aims

Apart from offering a broad view of the literary works produced during this time, the course intends to develop reading skills in the students that will enable them to respond in an informed and critical manner to texts in general. The course aims to destabilize preconceived notions such as author, history, originality, space, etc.

Requirements and assessment

Active and informed responses to the texts will weigh heavily in the assessment of the course because so much of the development of good scholarship depends on formulating pertinent questions and debating readings and misreadings.  Each session, one student will present briefly (20 minutes) the prescribed text. This will be equal to a 30% of the final grade. The presentation will be the starting point of the debate in which all students should engage at least once (30% of the grade).  At the end of the semester there will be a final exam (40%) that will assess both reading skills and general knowledge of the topics of the course. Attendance will not be taken each class but it will be crucial to earn a good grade.

  

Topics and reading list

16 sessions

Introduction: The Renaissance as historical concept; Scholasticism vs. Humanism: reading as method.

Cosmic order and correspondences, Neoplatonism, Elizabethan english, EEBO. (February 9th).

Platonism and the New World: Sir Thomas More, Utopia, NAEL (February 16th)

Reformation and the Bible, "Faith in Conflict" excerpts from the NAEL (February 23rd) 

Humanist prose and power: Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster; Lady Jane Grey, excerpts NAEL;  Baldassare Castiglione (translated by Sir Thomas Hoby), The Book of the Courtier, excerpts from NAEL. (March 2nd)

The Elizabethan Age: Elizabeth I, excepts from NAEL. (March 9th) 

Developing a sense of nationality: Edmund Spenser: The Faerie Queen, excerpts from NAEL (March 16th).

World, Providence, History and Empire: Walter Raleigh, excerpts from NAEL (March 23rd).

Travel writing: The Wider World from NAEL (30th).

MIDTERM EXAM: APRIL 6TH 

Early Petrarchan poetry in English: Italian lyric and continental models: Henrician poets: Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, all the poems in the NAEL (April 20th)

Development of a new poetics: Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia, Defense of Poesie; John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy Of Wit, from NAEL. (April 27th)

The English Sonnet: Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Astrophel and Stella, Edmund Spenser,  Amoretti, Shakespeare, Sonnets. Excerpts from the NAEL.  (May 4th)

New styles: Chistopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander; Shakespeare Venus and Adonis. (May 11th)

Elizabethan Drama: Christopher Marlowe; The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. (May 18th)
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (May 25th).

  

Further Reading

Bolgar, R. R, The classical heritage and its beneficiaries, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.

Eisenstein, Elizabeth, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Grafton Anthony, Defenders of the text : the traditions of scholarship in an age of science, 1450-1800, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991.

Greenblatt, Stephen J., Renaissance Self-Fashioning, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

Rivers, Isabel, Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry. A Students’ Guide, New York and London: Routledge, 1992.

Spiller, Michael R. G., The Development of the Sonnet. An Introduction, New York and London: Routledge, 1992

Tillyard, E.M.W., The Elizabethan World Picture, London: Penguin, 1943.

Yates, Frances A., Ensayos reunidos III: Ideas e ideales del Renacimiento en el norte de Europa, México, FCE, 1967.